


Storm Swap

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Dissection, Gen, Horror, Medical Horror, Patricide, Poison, Roleswap, Surgery, The Anevka Situation, There's like eighty warning all rolled up in that so just take note, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 06:30:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21011294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Welcome, dear readers, to the world of Martellus Sturmvoraus and Tarvek von Blitzengaard.





	Storm Swap

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Girl Genius Event Week  
Oct. 12: It always feels like too large of a commitment
> 
> Generally there aren't any non-canon warnings beyond an incest reference (specifically a character objecting to the implication of it) and me getting graphic about the whole Anevka thing.

Now, the casual observer of the world would find it seeming as normal as any other in its universal quadrant. The general shape of the story it presented was the same as the baseline. There was a Heterodyne Girl. There was an heir that was older than his own empire. There was a Prince of Sturmhalten who would be King of Storms.

Unlike the dimensions that traipsed through their patch of the universe, however, this Prince of Sturmhalten was _not _the one a reality hopper would expect.

Welcome, dear readers, to the world of Martellus Sturmvoraus and Tarvek von Blitzengaard.

\--

Raised in Paris by his grandmother, rather than in Sturmhalten with a nightmare of a father, Tarvek von Blitzengaard was rather similar in demeanor to the self he had in most other dimensions. He was foppish, dramatic, and very ready to throw down over the color of a hair tie. He was, of course, still an incredibly powerful spark and surprisingly competent smoke knight, but he had far less of the horrific secrets he’d have eventually come to terms with, in another life.

(The Tarvek of another world had simply surrounded himself in denial until Agatha showed up. It worked, until it didn’t, and then things went quite poorly for _dear_ Tarvek.)

Altogether, he was a happier person. He had a twin sister who was just as willing to quietly snipe about Jennifer Beaulieu’s choice in cuff lace as he was. He had parents who were Valois, and thus terrible, but far from the worst of the bunch. He had his choice of schooling opportunities.

He never met Gilgamesh Holzfäller until the latter came to Paris for schooling, which could have gone dreadfully, but mostly just ended up entertaining for everyone around them.

“Ugh,” Seffie scoffed. “Damn it, _I_ wanted him.”

“Then have him,” Tarvek told her, trying desperately to not pout where he lay across the couch, his head in her lap.

“I can’t have him, you already do! I’m not going to date my_ twin brother’s ex,_ that’s _weird!”_

“He’s not my ex! We never dated!”

“Well, you _should._ Everyone sees the way you two look at each other when you think the other isn’t looking. It’s _embarrassing._ He’s all you _ever_ talk about.”

“Well—fine! Fine, I’ll kiss Holzfäller when _you_ kiss Colette!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

It was a much more functional sibling relationship than he’d have had with Anevka, to all appearances. In this case, however, appearances were true.

\--

Raised in Sturmhalten by Aaronev Sturmvoraus, was—well, nobody would grow up alright in those circumstances. Nobody would have been well-adjusted.

So when Martellus got the chance to leave and be a hostage on Castle Wulfenbach, he grabbed it with both hands and didn’t let go. Anevka had snorted and told him that, at ten, he was too old to be bringing along a stuffed bear. He told her that, at age twelve, she was too young to be telling him what to do.

Their mother had rolled her eyes and gestured for Martellus to get on the airship. Their father had already said his goodbyes and holed himself up in the study, and Martellus was glad of it. Anevka and his mother had given him their last goodbyes, and his mother had whispered.

“This place is cursed. Stay in the air for as long as you can. You will be safer there.”

He’d tried, really. He’d kept his head down, but that Holzfäller kid had been so pathetically eager to please, and so ready to talk about making constructs that could be friends, that Martellus hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d taken the younger boy under his wing, and offered to play backup on the mission to discover The Truth, and gotten sent home for the mistake of it.

He could take solace, small as it was, that he had not disappointed his mother.

The Throne had taken her too, well before he’d come home to the news that she was as dead as all the others.

\--

_“Breathe,”_ Seffie hissed, back when they were twelve and just barely entering the point where they were competition to be taken out, rather than children to be… well, also taken out, but with less effort. More likely to be ignored.

“It _hurts,”_ Tarvek choked out.

“I know, I _know,”_ Seffie said. “Violetta, hurry _up!”_

Small hands pulled at Tarvek’s jacket and ripped open his shirt, draining a vial of something that _burned_ onto the hole in his chest.

“Get Grandma,” Tarvek managed to say.

Seffie hesitated, but hurried off.

“Eyes on me,” Violetta said. She ignored the two bodies cooling in the corner. One assassin, one bodyguard, both as dead as the other.

Tarvek was alive. He wasn’t supposed to be, as far as Leopold was concerned.

“Eyes on _me,” _Violetta hissed.

(On the other side of the palace, Seffie clutched at the patch of skin above her heart, throbbing in tandem with her twin’s.)

\--

When Martellus was five years old, he’d learned about the Muses. When he was seven, he’d learned again.

He’d been in a little group with his sister and cousins at the time, sitting on the floor and clutching a toy.

Tarvek had been enraptured.

Martellus had… not.

Oh, he’d understood why they were important, of course, but he’d been more interested in the politics, the policy, the pure _planning_ of the Storm King.

He’d watched Tarvek’s face, five years old and eyes shining, and decided then and there.

“When I’m Storm King,” Martellus had declared, with all the seriousness he could manage. “You’re going to be my Van Rijn.”

Tarvek had eyed him, very seriously, and looking far too silly in his overlarge glasses, and said, _“If _you’re Storm King, okay. But if _I’m_ the Storm King, you’re gonna be my general.”

Martellus had frowned down at him, and then said, “That means we can’t kill each other.”

Tarvek blinked at him. “Why would I kill you? Wait, why would _you_ kill _me?”_

Oh.

Oh, no.

The twins were still only five, nobody had—nobody had _explained_ yet.

“…no reason,” Martellus had said, scrambling for words and hoping someone, _anyone,_ could save him from this. Where was Anevka? “But we have to make sure we don’t die. If I die, you don’t get a general, and if _you_ die, I don’t get a Van Rijn.”

“Or maybe,” Anevka said, swooping in out of nowhere, in all her nine-year-old glory. “I’ll be the Storm _Queen._ That would be a twist, wouldn’t it?”

Tarvek hid behind Martellus.

“Nuh-uh,” Seffie said. “You can’t be Storm Queen! Grandpa would never let that happen.”

_“Grandma_ would,” Anevka said. She smirked. “And you all know she makes Grandpa do _whatever_ she wants.”

“A lot of the old guys would argue,” Martellus said. “She’s not wrong.”

Anevka rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

She left, and Tarvek poked his head out from behind Martellus’s arm. He looked up.

“You sister’s scary.”

“She tries,” Martellus said, because that was all there really was to say. Anevka _was_ scary. She worked _hard_ to be that way.

Seffie attached herself to his other side. “Hey, hey, you’re not _really_ going to try to kill Tarvek, right?”

“No, I’m not!”

“Good,” Seffie said, glaring at him. “Because if you did, I’d kill _you_ first.”

God, he wanted to pat her on the head. She couldn’t really glare. She kind of just… pouted. And looked cute.

“Okay,” Martellus said.

Seffie nodded sharply and flounced off after Anevka, already speeding to catch up the cousin that she rather idolized at the moment. She’d grow out of it, hopefully. Nobody needed _two_ Anevkas running around, after all.

“You’re not gonna try to kill me,” Tarvek said. “But… is anyone else?”

Martellus hesitated. “I… I mean… if they think you’re a threat?”

“To what?”

“I… to them? To their chances of the throne?” Martellus floundered. “I…”

He couldn’t keep talking about this.

Tarvek watched him, eyes solemn, and then nodded. “Okay. I can figure something out.”

He ran off after the girls, and Martellus was left where he was, listening to the tutor pack her bags for the day.

\--

This was a fact: Twins were not naturally psychic, not even in a world so ripe with oddities.

This was another: Sparks had never cared what was natural.

When the Count von Blitzengaard and Princess Olujina had twins, they’d waited, of course. Six months, to make sure the children would survive at all. Then she’d gotten the science out, and he’d followed with no spark but plenty of helpful enthusiasm, and they’d gone to work on their children.

…listen, they were better than Aaronev, but they still weren’t _great._

The twins survived, and it worked, and everyone counted themselves very lucky and didn’t acknowledge how completely fucked up the recent activities had been.

(They couldn’t read each other’s minds or anything quite so intense, but they could feel one another. Emotions. Pain. Nudges of the barest edges of thoughts. It wasn’t a perfect communicator, but they were clever enough to turn it into a code.)

Eighteen years later, they were unstoppable.

Kind of.

“Oh, Henri,” Seffie sighed, draping herself over the man’s arm. “I just, goodness, I can’t even _say it.”_

“She’s distraught,” Tarvek cooed, pressing himself to the other arm and wrapping an arm around Henri’s waist. “I mean, we’re just entirely cut off from our cousins and—”

“Such a _horrible_ place, really,” Seffie said, cutting him off. “I mean, have you _seen_ how often it snows there? The _rain?”_

“Absolutely dreadful,” Tarvek agreed.

Oh, Henri’s face was so red. He was breathing _quite_ shallowly…

“I just—I feel like I need a little comforting—” Seffie said, cutting herself off with a little hiccupping sob.

“And I’m just too upset to do anything myself,” Tarvek added. “If it were something else, I’d make some tea or—”

“Bake a cake and—”

“—sit and talk for hours and—”

“—play the piano or—”

“—just hug it out for a little or—”

“—oh, I’m sure you’d have some other ideas,” they ended in tandem.

“I… I don’t, um, I…” Henri stuttered. “I’m, uh—”

“Oh,” Seffie said, sounding just a little hurt. “Oh, of _course._ Tarvek, dear, I think he may be better for you.”

“Whoa, whoa, I’m not—” Henri said, looking down at Tarvek with wide eyes. “I mean, no offense, your highness, but—”

“Perhaps not,” Tarvek said, patting Henri’s arm gently. “Or perhaps he worried that we’d want him… together?”

Seffie made an affronted noise. “Certainly not! We’re not _Ptolemaic,_ you know.”

“I didn’t mean to imply—” Henri said. “I mean, I’m sure you’re perfectly, um…”

He couldn’t seem to figure out which one to look at.

Seffie and Tarvek met each other’s eyes, and then took off, leaving the poor man behind without even a glance.

“How long, do you think?” Seffie asked idly, picking up a glass of champagne and leaning against the wall.

“Until he tries to find a way to beg our forgiveness?” Tarvek asked. He swirled his own glass. “I give it three days before he builds up the courage to look us in the eye again. He’ll come up with something appropriate by then.”

“Good,” Seffie said. “Do you think I should… take him for a spin?”

“No, he strikes me as rather… repressed,” Tarvek said.

She looked at him and smirked. “You’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“Out and proud, darling,” Tarvek said. He held up his champagne to the light. “As you should be, I think.”

“Hardly,” Seffie said. She cocked a hip and took a sip. “I’m not a threat. I’m safer as a pawn, for now. You, on the other hand…”

“Easier if they think I’d be more interested in a Heterodyne _Prince,”_ Tarvek said. “Or at least have made such a spectacle of myself that it’ll be hard to backpedal…”

Seffie frowned and looked at him. His face was smooth, but… oh dear.

“You’ll be able to figure something out,” she declared. “You’re clever enough, and it’s easier that you _do_ genuinely like men, just…”

He shot her a look. There were things they’d said that were more than alright in public, but Monsieur Patenaude was drifting _far_ too close for something as on-the-line as that.

“—what an unfortunate choice in waistcoat,” he said instead.

“Madame Valentina’s? With that gold trim, most _certainly,”_ Seffie said, mimicking his tone without a hint of hesitation. “And did you see her hair pin?”

“The gold was already bad, but to pick clashing metals without coordinating them?” Tarvek shook his head. “Shameful.”

Patenaude hurried off, heading directly for Duchess Madeira, clearly ready to gossip her ear off.

Tarvek waited, and then said, “Besides, I’m not the only one to drink both wine and whiskey.”

“Fair,” Seffie said. “But you _are_ the one to dance both parts.”

“Perhaps not the best time,” Tarvek said. “Besides, do you see Medigenesia? She seems…”

“Too comfortable,” Seffie finished. “Wreak a little havoc?”

“We can’t have her thinking she can cause trouble,” Tarvek said.

They knocked back their drinks and took off.

\--

_Monster in the flesh—_

He had to—where were the clamps, the _clamps_, her heart was stopping and—

_—he was going to kill that man, flesh and blood or—_

**Blood on his hands and in his hair and he could barely tell the difference now but her heart was stopping and her—**

_—bilious and brazenly evil and the bastard was going to die _die** die—**

Wasted all his time on bloody _bears_ and his sister was dying at his father’s hands and he hadn’t even been home to stop it, he’d been with bloody _Vapnoople_ and no apprenticeship was worth this kind of hell this kind of loss this kind of—

_—he’d been awake three days and Father was trying to pull him away and Martellus didn’t even _think_ he just _stabbed_ and if the old man got dead, he’d deserved it, he’d always _said _that a Sturmvoraus who didn’t train in the ways of the Smoke deserved any death coming to him—_

The spinal fluid was _leaking_ and hell hell hell he wasn’t going to get this done, wasn’t going to save her, she was going to _die_ under his _hands_ and the most terrifying girl he’d ever known was going to pass away because Father was FUCKING OBSESSED and—

_—he couldn’t save her couldn’t do this couldn’t fucking—_

He got her stable.

It was all he could do.

Then he cleaned up the lab and cleaned up the corpse and cleaned up the tears on his face.

He wasn’t going to be able to do this alone.

(Especially not with the Questors coming to Sturmhalten.)

(What would he even tell them?)

\--

When Tarvek was sixteen, he was poisoned.

Again!

It happened rather a lot, see.

He was getting rather good at surviving, in his own opinion. Violetta was annoyed at him more often than not, and Seffie got _very _grumpy when she was in pain. The fact was simply that nobody wanted to kill her _half_ as much as they wanted to kill him, so she was usually in pain while also worrying.

Which just made her grumpier.

This was probably bad, though. Very bad, actually, had he really annoyed Leopold that much? Was it even Leopold?

"Move,” a familiar voice hissed, and Tarvek blinked hazily as Martellus pushed past Seffie and Sparafucile to get to Tarvek. “What did—wait, did you drink that? _Tarvek.”_

“Hello,” Tarvek slurred. “’m not gonna be competition now, yeah?”

“Wh—oh my god, shut _up,”_ Martellus snarled. He started pulling bottles out of his coat, nose wrinkled. “Do you really think I’m going to let you die? Because _Leopold_ wants you out of the way?”

“Much easier’n killing me yourself,” Tarvek said. “’r savin’ me.”

“No,” Martellus snapped. “If you die by the hand of anyone in the family, it’s going to be by mine, and it’s going to be because you decided to turn an entire town into squirrels or something.”

“’m not a bio spark,” Tarvek protested. “Da’s you.”

Martellus stabbed him with a syringe. Tarvek didn’t scream, but it was close. “Don’t make stupid jokes or I’ll regret saving you more than I already do.”

“Heh.” Tarvek let his head roll back and tried to find a way to enjoy the burning crawling up his arm.

“Dumb kid,” Martellus muttered, just barely loud enough for Tarvek to hear. “Gotta drag you out of everything myself…”

\--

When Martellus was fourteen, he sat down with his older sister and dissected a geisterdame.

“Won’t they be mad?” he asked.

“Oh, certainly,” Anevka said. “Pass me the scalpel? Number four, the titanium one from Venice.”

“Here,” Martellus said, passing it over. “How’d she die?”

“She got sick,” Anevka said with a shrug. “The others were saying something about her angering the goddess, and… well, it may have some grain of truth, depending on what Lucrezia _did_ to them, but my guess is that it’s simply an uncommon bacterium that they didn’t have in their home, and thus never developed an immunity to. Clip down the skin here—thank you.”

“What are you hoping to find?”

“We don’t really know what we’re looking for,” Anevka mused. “But I want to see what a Geister looks like inside, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Martellus said. He watched as pale skin was peeled back to reveal black organs with a faint blue sheen. Given the color of Anevka’s formerly white gloves, the blood was nearly the same color as a human’s, if not a much deeper color. “Wow. Do you think that’s what they’re like that naturally, or just the sick ones?”

“I couldn’t say,” Anevka said, with a wistful sigh. “Goodness, imagine if we could look into a wider variety of samples. We’d learn so much, and then maybe we’d have an easier time… handling them.”

She hummed lightly as she worked, and Martellus soaked in every word she said on the elasticity of the skin, or the overlarge kidneys, or the latticed bone structure. He leaned into the way she pointed out how oddly the spine was connected and how the tendons of the right hand were frayed and failing, while the ones on the left were so tough that the scalpel could hardly slice through them.

“Well, that _must_ be a factor of disease…” Anevka said, voice hushed. “I’d say the tougher one is probably the one that’s more natural, wouldn’t you?”

Martellus nodded.

“Hm… I want to take a look at the eyes,” Anevka declared. “They don’t seem to have pupils, but they wouldn’t be able to _see_ if they didn’t have a place for light to go in. Hand me the scoop?”

Everyone had ways of bonding with family. Anevka had established very early on that this was her favorite, and Martellus couldn’t bring himself to disagree.

\--

“Oh dear,” Seffie said, a hand over her mouth. “I just—the accident took Uncle Aaronev, and Anevka’s really on the brink right now—Martellus is at his _wit’s _end, and Tarvek and I have just been trying to get him to take care of himself without—well, without letting go of Anevka, but he’s the only one that knows biology well enough to really have any chance of—”

“Stop,” the Baron said, passing a hand down his face. “I understand.”

Seffie bit her lip and leaned back against the door. Her panic was reflected in her brother’s, so deep she couldn’t even _try_ to ignore what radiated from the basement. “I’m very sorry, Herr Baron, but we weren’t expecting you, and I’m afraid your presence might push dear Martellus past the edge, when he’s already so stressed. He may very well snap. The questors already came and left, after all. Was it—was it not to your liking?”

He eyed her like he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her, which was fair, if only because he looked like he could throw her quite far without even trying.

“The situation doesn’t add up,” he finally said. “Wilhelm was one of the most careful people I knew, when it comes to safety in the laboratory. He wouldn’t have died in a lab accident and I’m sure of it.”

“I wasn’t here,” Seffie said, ducking her head and looking away. She twisted a lock of hair around her finger with feigned nervousness. “I don’t—I really don’t know what happened, _nobody_ does. Anevka can’t tell us and Martellus is—honestly I don’t want to drag him _away_ from her, not with the state she’s in…”

“I can help,” the Baron said.

Shit.

“Oh, I’m not sure, they really might not want you messing about with fifty families’ bodies,” Seffie tittered. Her heart pounded like a madwoman’s, so strong she couldn’t doubt that it was being fueled by Tarvek as well as herself. He was so _dismayed._ “Perhaps another time? I’m—”

“I am _not_ here simply to help, but I will if I find the princess in as bad a state as you say,” the Baron told her, and his tone brooked no argument. “I am here to figure out what is _wrong_ with this town, and if you attempt to stop me, I _will_ have you arrested.”

Seffie tried not to wince. “Of course, Herr Baron. I should… I should bring you to Martellus.”

“Do that.”

Seffie tried to warn them, coding what message she could to her brother, but the response she got was just a muffled _mess_ of anger and pain and fear.

She got an answer as to why when a door before her slammed open, and Martellus strode out.

He… looked much the way he had when she left him last. Eyes sunken from lack of sleep, stubble growing thick, blood still crusted in his fingernails and the furrows of his skin. He hadn’t even changed out of the shirt that was more red than white now. She wanted to yell at him to take a shower and sleep, but she knew he wouldn’t be able to do that until he stopped worrying that Anevka was going to fall to pieces as soon as he looked away.

“…busy?” the Baron asked, tone dry.

Martellus grimaced. “I need you to promise not to arrest me on the spot.”

The Baron raised an eyebrow.

“Please.”

“Oh, now this I have to hear,” the Baron said, crossing his arms and settling his weight onto his back foot.

“…my father has—_had_ spent the past fifteen years trying to bring Lucrezia Mongfish back to life by copying a stored version of her mind into the heads of young girls with the spark, usually killing them in the process, or rendering them vegetables. Lucrezia was the Other, and the procedure never worked, and after failing… probably well over two hundred times, he finally got desperate and attempted to use my sister. It almost killed her. Lucrezia’s army is living below Sturmhalten, and I’ve made sure they don’t know you’re here yet.”

Seffie gaped.

The Baron… didn’t.

“I see.”

“Help me save Anevka, and I’ll do whatever the hell I have to,” Martellus said. He swayed a little, then clenched his jaw and steadied himself with a hand on the doorknob. “I will tell you _everything, _just… help me save her.”

The Baron stared Martellus down, and neither flinched. Tarvek edged around from behind Martellus and darted over to Seffie, grabbing her hand and squeezing. Nineteen years old, and they still relied on each other like schoolchildren.

The Baron unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his sleeves up. “Show me to the operating theater.”


End file.
